A collector had a Harvey Milk stamp hand canceled at the Castro neighborhood post office as a keepsake in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. The U.S. Postal Service honored the slain gay rights leader with a commemorative stamp featuring a photograph taken by Daniel Nicoletta

A collector had a Harvey Milk stamp hand canceled at the Castro neighborhood post office as a keepsake in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. The U.S. Postal Service honored the slain gay rights

Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black clutches sheets of the Harvey Milk stamp after purchasing them at the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. Black, who wrote the screenplay for the movie "Milk", was invited to attend the official cermony at the White House, but chose to mark the occasion in the Castro. The U.S. Postal Service honored the slain gay rights leader with a commemorative stamp featuring a photograph taken by Daniel Nicoletta less

Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black clutches sheets of the Harvey Milk stamp after purchasing them at the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. Black, who wrote the ... more

Postal worker Maggie Lu shows the Harvey Milk stamp to Albert Sanders at the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. The U.S. Postal Service honored the slain gay rights leader with a commemorative stamp featuring a photograph taken by Daniel Nicoletta less

Postal worker Maggie Lu shows the Harvey Milk stamp to Albert Sanders at the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. The U.S. Postal Service honored the slain gay ... more

Kirk Linn-DeGrassi displays a sheet of Harvey Milk stamps outside of the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. The U.S. Postal Service honored the slain gay rights leader with a commemorative stamp featuring a photograph taken by Daniel Nicoletta less

Kirk Linn-DeGrassi displays a sheet of Harvey Milk stamps outside of the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. The U.S. Postal Service honored the slain gay rights ... more

Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black holds sheets of the Harvey Milk stamp after purchasing them at the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. Black, who wrote the screenplay for the movie "Milk", was invited to attend the official cermony at the White House, but chose to mark the occasion in the Castro. The U.S. Postal Service honored the slain gay rights leader with a commemorative stamp featuring a photograph taken by Daniel Nicoletta less

Screenwriter Dustin Lance Black holds sheets of the Harvey Milk stamp after purchasing them at the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. Black, who wrote the ... more

Kirk Linn-DeGrassi displays a sheet of Harvey Milk stamps outside of the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. The U.S. Postal Service honored the slain gay rights leader with a commemorative stamp featuring a photograph taken by Daniel Nicoletta less

Kirk Linn-DeGrassi displays a sheet of Harvey Milk stamps outside of the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. The U.S. Postal Service honored the slain gay rights ... more

Jason Faybeck purchases the Harvey Milk stamp at the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. The U.S. Postal Service honored the slain gay rights leader with a commemorative stamp featuring a photograph taken by Daniel Nicoletta less

Jason Faybeck purchases the Harvey Milk stamp at the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. The U.S. Postal Service honored the slain gay rights leader with a ... more

John Carr holds sheets of Harvey Milk stamps after purchasing about $100 worth at the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. Carr has lived in the neighborhood since 1979, not long after Milk's assassination. The U.S. Postal Service honored the slain gay rights leader with a commemorative stamp featuring a photograph taken by Daniel Nicoletta less

John Carr holds sheets of Harvey Milk stamps after purchasing about $100 worth at the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. Carr has lived in the neighborhood since ... more

John Carr (left) purchases about $100 worth of the new Harvey Milk stamp at the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. Carr has lived in the neighborhood since 1979, not long after Milk's assassination. The U.S. Postal Service honored the slain gay rights leader with a commemorative stamp featuring a photograph taken by Daniel Nicoletta less

John Carr (left) purchases about $100 worth of the new Harvey Milk stamp at the Castro neighborhood post office in San Francisco, Calif. on Thursday, May 22, 2014. Carr has lived in the neighborhood since 1979, ... more

Mike Pierce, left, and his partner, Jim Knight, hold a sheet of Harvey Milk commemorative stamps at the Castro post office on the first day of issue, May 22, 2014.

Mike Pierce, left, and his partner, Jim Knight, hold a sheet of Harvey Milk commemorative stamps at the Castro post office on the first day of issue, May 22, 2014.

Photo: Kurtis Alexander

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Deputy Postmaster General Ronald Stroman (3rd R) and Co-founder and President of the Harvey Milk Foundation Stuart Milk (3rd L) unveil the Harvey Milk Forever stamp during a ceremony in Old Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, May 22, 2014. They were joined by Congressman John Lewis (L), House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (2nd L), US Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Susan Power (2nd R), and Senator Tammy Baldwin (R). Harvey Milk was the first openly-gay man elected to public office in California. He was assasinated in 1978. AFP PHOTO / Jim WATSONJIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images less

Deputy Postmaster General Ronald Stroman (3rd R) and Co-founder and President of the Harvey Milk Foundation Stuart Milk (3rd L) unveil the Harvey Milk Forever stamp during a ceremony in Old Executive Office ... more

Photo: Jim Watson, AFP/Getty Images

Image 14 of 14

Harvey Milk stamp's debut celebrated in S.F., D.C.

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Washington -- - U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin looked out at the crowd of politicians, federal officials and gay activists who had been invited to the White House on what would have been Harvey Milk's 84th birthday.

The occasion was the U.S. Postal Service's first day of issue Thursday for a stamp honoring the slain San Francisco supervisor and gay rights leader. But as the venue would suggest, this was about a lot more than a stamp.

"I am literally here because of the progress he helped make," said Baldwin, a Democrat who became the first open lesbian to serve in the Senate after Wisconsin voters elected her in 2012 over a popular former governor, Tommy Thompson.

It was a moment Milk surely would have appreciated. He used to open his speeches with the line, "I'm Harvey Milk, and I'm here to recruit you."

He was mocking the stereotype, still very much alive in the 1970s, that gays and lesbians lured innocents into their ranks. But he was also asking potential allies to join the cause of gay civil rights.

Hope for young gays

Milk insisted that to achieve equal rights, gay people must achieve elected office. He would become one of the first to do so when voters in San Francisco elected him to the Board of Supervisors in 1977.

Of young gays outside big coastal cities, Milk once said, "The only thing they have to look forward to is hope." Electing gays, he said, "means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone."

All 50 states have had an out lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender politician serve in an official capacity, and 41 states have elected an openly gay politician to their state legislatures.

Samantha Power, the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, led Thursday's dedication ceremony for the "forever" stamp, featuring a black-and-white image of Milk and a slice of the rainbow flag. President Obama, who posthumously awarded Milk the Medal of Freedom in 2009, was traveling and did not attend.

"Harvey Milk, you have recruited us, and we'll be forever grateful," Power said. "We will be forever changed."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, recalled standing on the steps of City Hall at Milk's funeral, asking her colleagues, "Is this how it ends?"

"No, this is how it begins," Pelosi said Thursday.

'Milk prevails in history'

Milk was 48 when he and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated by former Supervisor Dan White at City Hall on Nov. 27, 1978. In 11 months in office, Milk had succeeded in passing the first strict gay rights ordinance in a city where police had only recently stopped raiding gay bars.

San Francisco writer James Patterson, who attended the stamp ceremony and worked at the Department of Agriculture when Helms tried to get him fired for being gay, recalled that Milk used to laugh at such talk.

The Milk stamp is a "repudiation for the hate Helms instilled in people," Patterson said. "Harvey Milk prevails in history and Helms, if he is recalled at all, it is as a laughingstock."

"The stamp is the culmination of a community labor of love, involving people as diverse as World War II veterans to millennial drag queens," Ramirez said. "It started with letters from people in the San Diego area, which led to an avalanche of correspondence from across the nation urging our government to create a Harvey Milk stamp."

In San Francisco's Castro neighborhood, where Milk ran a camera store, first-day sales were brisk. Within the first hour, the post office at 18th and Diamond streets had sold 5,000 of the stamps, and by midafternoon nearly 10,000 were gone. The station had more stamps shipped from other post offices to meet demand.

As big as Elvis

"It was just like when Elvis Presley (stamps) went on sale," said postal worker Yolanda Layoc. "People have been asking about this stamp for three months."

"He stood for gay rights and equality," Knight said. "He stood for, 'Just because you're gay doesn't make you any less of a person.' "

Philadelphia resident Bill Adams, 50, happened to be in town and joined the line. The purchase was especially meaningful, he said, because same-sex marriage became legal in his home state of Pennsylvania this week.